Colour Composition: Using Subtle Colour

In my last article I wrote about using colour boldly. Today I’m going to look at ways you can use colour in a much subtler, gentler fashion.

Bold colours are most often found in man-made objects. If someone paints a wall bright red, for example, and you take a photo of it against a deep blue sky, then you are using colours that are just about as strong and deep as it is possible to get.

In nature though, colours are often much more subtle. And there are ways that you can use the subtlety of colour found in nature to create photos that capture the mood of the scene.

Let’s look at some examples to explain what I mean:

For this portrait I photographed my model against a cliff and use the cloudy white balance setting to warm it up. The background and the model’s skin and hair are all shades of brown. Apart from white, I don’t think there’s another colour in the image.

Here’s another portrait taken the same afternoon. The background in this photo is the sea, although it’s difficult to recognise as it’s out of focus. It was overcast, so the sea has come out grey rather than blue. But it suits the image. Just like the previous portrait, the colour palette is limited.

I created this photo by focusing on the grass in the foreground and using a wide aperture to defocus the setting the sun. I applied a low colour temperature in post-processing to give the scene a cool feel. Even though it is sunset, the colours are subtle.

Here is a close-up photo I took in a local museum. The colour palette is very subtle. The box is cream, and the background is green. There is some nice tonal contrast going on in this image.

So far, the examples I’ve given have all used soft or pastel colours. But you can still use bright colours such as red in a subtle way. Here’s an example:

My model was wearing a bright red jumper and headband, so I positioned her against a white coloured building to provide a neutral background. The neutrality of the background colours emphasise the strength of the red.

I hope the photos in this article and the last have given you some ideas about using colour in your photos. It’s a little more difficult to use colour with subtlety that it is to fill the frame with bright colours. But it does give you an extra tool for expressing yourself with. And don’t forget, you don’t have to settle for the colour palette that nature provides. Feel free to make the colours in your images more subtle by desaturating them in post-processing.

Mastering Photography

My latest ebook, Mastering Photography: A Beginner’s Guide to Using Digital Cameras introduces you to digital photography and helps you make the most out of your digital camera. It covers concepts such as lighting and composition as well as the camera settings you need to master to take creative photos like the ones in this article.

Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with Nikon DSLR equipment. I do unpaid TFP and paid work.